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On Thursday President Donald Trump nominated Dr. Erica Schwartz for director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Schwartz is described as someone who “publicly supported vaccines” by The New York Times. The Washington Post said the pick of Schwartz indicates the administration is “avoiding vaccine skeptics.” It should be noted however that the former CDC director who was ousted in August, Susan Monarez, had a similar view of vaccines.
“Dr. Erica Schwartz is seen as a highly qualified traditional choice and tapping her the strongest signal yet that the administration is veering away from vaccine skepticism this election year,” The New York Times said.
The Washington Post reported that Trump’s administration may be laying off its vaccine safety push in a bid to curry more votes in the midterm elections, a plan which may be shortsighted, resulting in even less votes from a population increasingly aware of vaccine dangers.
The Director of the National Institutes of Health Dr. Jay Bhattacharya serves as the Acting Director of the CDC after the ousting of the previous CDC Director Susan Monarez following her clashes with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“The showdown began as a disagreement over demands from Kennedy and Stefanie Spear, his principal deputy chief of staff, for Monarez to support changes to Covid vaccine policy and the firings of high-level staff, a source familiar with the conversations told ABC News, which Monarez would not commit to,” ABC News said in August.
“Trump administration officials believe they have found a prescription to fix the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: a four-person team to lead an agency charged with advising Americans on navigating health challenges but has seen a precipitous decline in public trust,” The Washington Post said Thursday prior to the selection of Schwartz. “The move comes amid questions about whether the CDC will continue to implement Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine agenda or back away ahead of the midterm elections, with many voters opposed to Kennedy’s efforts to roll back vaccine policies.”
A shift away from the MAHA agenda of vaccine safety may be getting sold to the President as a way to curry favor with more voters, yet from a logical perspective such as move would be antithetical to an election win.
Trump was elected in 2024 by a broad coalition of voters who were dissatisfied with the Joe Biden regime and its Covid vaccine-mandate-friendly government. Ironically, or perhaps understandably, it is a Biden official who says the Trump administration should return to the standard of being unable to question vaccine safety.
“After the Trump administration’s initial moves to dramatically shake up the CDC, internal considerations about the agency have changed in recent months amid controversies over Kennedy-directed vaccine changes, said a former senior HHS official who served in Trump’s first term and then in the Biden administration, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel decisions. That shift is ‘increasing the urgency of filling the CDC director role after recent failed attempts,’ the former official said. ‘Doing so will require a capable leader — she is far more qualified than previous nominees — and a willingness to stop sidelining the CDC and let it get back to its job’,” The Post said.
From a pragmatic perspective, in order to have safe vaccines, vaccines must be able to be questioned, tested, reformulated, or removed from the market entirely. Therefore, a foundational tenet of vaccine safety is vaccine skepticism.
“People recognize that the majority of Americans want safe and effective vaccines, and the politics of anti-vax don’t work,” Jeffrey Klausner, an infectious-disease physician and informal adviser to Kennedy said.
There is an internal battle between vaccine zealots and vaccine skeptics.
“Whoever takes the CDC job will inherit legal battles related to Kennedy’s vaccine changes, a growing measles outbreak — with more than 1,700 cases reported this year — and a workforce shaken by months of upheaval,” The Post said. “While the selections have drawn praise from public health experts and former officials, some former CDC officials said the real test will be whether the agency’s scientific work is insulated from political influence. Political appointees with ties to Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group Kennedy founded, or hold similar views, are still working at or advising HHS.”
In remarks before lawmakers on Thursday, Kennedy highlighted nutrition and food safety but largely avoided questions about his efforts to overhaul the nationwide vaccination policy.
“Kennedy also omitted mention of his work to identify the causes of autism from remarks at the first of his two Congressional hearings on Thursday, the latest sign that the nation’s top health official is sidestepping some of his most controversial positions ahead of November’s midterm elections,” Reuters said Thursday.
On January 5 Trump announced a new childhood vaccine schedule consisting of 11 vaccines instead of 72 in the former schedule. The move comes one month after Trump ordered the Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary RFK Jr. to evaluate foreign vaccine schedules and better align the U.S. schedule with them.
“The CDC will continue to recommend that all children are vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis (whooping cough), Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), Pneumococcal conjugate, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, and human papillomavirus (HPV), for which there is international consensus, as well as varicella (chickenpox),” the Department of Health and Human Services fact sheet said. “The immunizations recommended for certain high-risk groups or populations are for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), hepatitis A, hepatitis B, dengue, meningococcal ACWY, and meningococcal B.”
At the tail-end of the Biden era the CDC rolled out 200 “routine vaccines” for 2025. The Trump administration took the opposite approach, greatly reducing the number.
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